Why does writing things down still matter? (ft. Bex from StationeryFest)

I was going to ask because I know you posted on Instagram about your journal stack or your planner stack for sort of the year ahead.

And I noticed you had quite a few different ones that are all like used for different things.

Could you take us through that? What are the things behind that?

Yeah, I'm very much, I very much like to have different books, different kind of ways to kind of compartmentalise my life, I suppose, really.

That's what works for me.

I know for a lot of people that doesn't work and they just need to have everything in one place.

But obviously I have lots of different hats that I wear, you know, a busy day job working at a university as a lecturer.

My passion project is stationery fest, planner fest and journal fest.

So I've got the kind of planning side and then obviously the journaling side as well.

So I have like a creative journal, I have a five-year journal and, you know, and different things in between as well, like create like a junk Dory from Grace and Soul Inc and, you know, all different kind of books that I use.

So I'm not using all of them all the time.

But I, there's kind of, in fact, I've got kind of a few here.

So that I definitely use this, like, you know, these books, on a kind of daily or weekly certainly basis so so yeah I think it's an excuse maybe to have more notebooks more planner covers maybe that's the reason more fountain pens to go with them I don't know so maybe that's the real reason behind it but um but yeah I do like having a clear place so that everything doesn't get kind of lost and I don't have to search too much I can just go to okay well that would be in that book and um and kind of reach for reach for it really so um but yeah it is a lot but I don't I try not to beat myself up about you know if things don't get touched or written in you know life's too busy isn't it to um berate yourself or even back kind of date you know a lot of entries I generally just kind of go with the flow and um I've got certain ones that I will keep up with really regularly and it you know and then there's others that I might not you know touch for for some time so that's how I work

that's the thing because I find sometimes I get a little bit too bogged down with maybe the whole back journaling thing and I have to sort of think no actually let me just skip to today and just like go from today um because it's always that thing of like I've got to do everything perfect or it's not worth it and like you were saying like it's just dipping in and out of the different books is if it brings us joy then it works doesn't it

It does.

I think it was Ian from the Paper Sparrow said at Journal Fest a few years ago, he said, like, you know, let paper fulfill its destiny.

And I've really kind of held back, like, you know, I just thought, yeah, just don't stress about it.

Just enjoy it.

You know, you don't want to spend your time thinking, you know, you're wasting the time that you have.

You're just going to make the most of that time that you have.

I think one thing though, with my, I'm back in Midori Hibino, like which I was in a couple of years ago and I absolutely love.

So I'm back in it again now.

So one thing that I do try to do every kind of maybe at some point over the weekend, I will try and just kind of catch up on the pages from that week, even if I've not managed to touch it during the week.

So that's one thing that I do go back and, But that's very loose and free and sticking loads of things in it and making notes of what I've been up to really.

Again, perfectionism has gone.